Internet Filtering and Censorship: An IT Perspective.
November 8th 2008 00:30
Internet Filtering and Censorship: An IT Perspective.
Firstly I will qualify this post by stipulating that though I am a Network Engineer by profession I will never claim to speak for all Network Engineers. IT diagnostics and security were my area of expertise. This is my viewpoint from a high level technical perspective and no one else’s. I will leave the questions of morality and ethics for later because my focus in this post is feasibility.
Introduction
There is an example of a nation that does filter and censor the Internet and that example exists in China. As a late comer to the IT world China’s situation was both advantageous and disadvantageous for its deployment. The primary disadvantage as also its primary advantage: the lack of any network infrastructure. Everything had to be built from the ground up, which also meant that they had no legacy equipment and training issues. They did not have to maintain 20 year old databases that spanned the nation, they did not have to keep spares for an old box that was vitally important and they did not have to de-educate a mindset that was focused romantically upon dying technology. For the Chinese this was their age of enlightenment and computers were lighting the way.
The unfortunate problem was that China was also a totalitarian state and instant access to information that counters the official party line was problematic. Yet Western vendors were keen to sell their products into a new market of 1 billion people before their competitors did. In the battle between principle and cash flow, principles were soluble. So we ended up with companies like Cisco Systems setting up the filters on the edge routers; Yahoo handing over the names of dissidents and other vendors becoming involved in the closing down of China’s ability to see the outside world. Even a search on the Tiananmen Square Massacre will cause a Chinese user’s service to be cut for 15 minutes.
Understanding the problem
There would be little social resistance to machine that could hunt down child porn and remove it from the Internet. There would also be little social resistance to stopping spam and phishing. The people who write a virus would have little sympathy if they were caught by the same machine. Adults who try to solicit children for sex would find few people crying over them getting caught. Yet every day this is precisely what happens on the net. From the protection of an anonymous profile people with criminal intent connect to the unsuspecting. Without these few criminals, the Net would be almost what we imagined it could be. It would be heavenly. Instead we are bunkered behind firewalls and continuously scanning for virus’s hoping that it is full proof. We are living in an age where communication has never been easier but people have never been more afraid of how that contact will be to their detriment.
The device that we use to connect on line has been so intractably entangled into to our psyche that if it is taken away we fret. People become angry, start to grieve and become desperate when their computers are infected with a virus. The stress of doing without online communications is almost at the point of complete and utter dependence.
In a much more serious manner we are products of a post 9-11 mindset where enemies haunt the shadows of the internet and plot our deaths. We no longer need proof of this because the imagination is being fuelled by thousands of conspiracy sites and hysterical blogs. Not only are our lives seen to be at risk but also the minds of our children who are innocent prey to an on line porn king playing havoc with their psychology.
There are no guardians on the net, no rating system and no blockages to prevent what people do not want from coming to their computers and what is more they have little knowledge of what their children are being fed. How do we find the recipe for a euthanasia drug, anorexic porn, depressing images of death and justification for self mutilation? You google it. Fear of losing a loved one to alienation and warped ideals can play heavily upon the minds of parents. Every person knows of someone who has gone the wrong way in life; made the wrong choices and abused everyone with a long rehearsed diatribe from a vogue subculture. It may seem easy to blame the net as an innocent scapegoat but where evidence is inconclusive, fear fills the gaps. Better to be safe than sorry.
Nanny States and PC Thugs
The problem occurs when the libertarian verses the protectorate argument cannot be settled. The Internet is free and open but it is also corrupted and decadent. Values determine the frame of the argument until it becomes part of a culture clash. Concerned parents want the corruption to go away, concerned libertarians want freedom to access material. When a culture war grows it eventually impacts upon politics. Any issue that gives a party a higher moral ground is a winner and nothing is higher than appearing to protect children. The market exists for a magic box that can make everything better.
Filtered Solutions
Technically such a box does not exist. We have major problem with fundamentals of the Internet design that makes such devices impossible. Accessibility and connectivity are opposite to security and protection. You cannot have one without sacrificing something of the other. Any professional who knows even the basics of Network security knows this rule. It is that basic. They also know that the only computer that is protected from the Internet nasties is one that is not connect to the internet, sits alone in a locked and is switched off. In short, if anyone promises 100% on line security, they are selling you snake oil. Every security measure on the internet is a compromise where either security is sacrificed for increased access or access is sacrificed for increase security.
The Governments Pipe Dream
I am yet to see a realistic way of filtering the internet. Unlike China, Australia has pre-existing infrastructure; it has multiple gateways into the nation and it operates principally in English. We do not have vendors selling solutions to universally implement across an entire nation.
For every security leap there is also a leap in breaking the security. The last government effort to give free CDs of internet filtering software collapsed after a few days of hacking by teenagers. The next proposal will require every ISP in the nation to co-operate in a way that is counterproductive to turning a profit. Extra staff will have to be employed to collect the data and filter the data for the government. The filter will require constant monitoring and adjustments as mistakes are made. The internet will operate slower as data is passed through a filter. The increased operational costs to ISPs will be passed directly onto the consumer. All these inconveniences will be added to the Net but produce no actual benefit.
It only takes a day for people to work out how to get around the filters. A new piece of encapsulating software that hides the nature of the content; sites that spoof or disguises IP address exist and pre existing technology like Voip will be reused to move data instead of voice. The professionals will be back in business before the filters are even warm and the rest of the world will push another button to solve a small hiccup. One day even China’s filters will be useless relics of lost power.
Conclusion:
The end result will be a very expensive white elephant that does nothing and protects no one. Hundreds of millions will be spent on a solution that cannot technically be provided because of the internet’s existing design. It would be cheaper to scrap the entire internet and start again with a new technology than to pursue this irrational approach. You cannot filter what you cannot see and you cannot see everything. These political clowns in Canberra do not understand the technology and have no idea what they are talking about.
But that is just my opinion.
Router and Servers and not much more. That is what the internet is.
Firstly I will qualify this post by stipulating that though I am a Network Engineer by profession I will never claim to speak for all Network Engineers. IT diagnostics and security were my area of expertise. This is my viewpoint from a high level technical perspective and no one else’s. I will leave the questions of morality and ethics for later because my focus in this post is feasibility.
Introduction
There is an example of a nation that does filter and censor the Internet and that example exists in China. As a late comer to the IT world China’s situation was both advantageous and disadvantageous for its deployment. The primary disadvantage as also its primary advantage: the lack of any network infrastructure. Everything had to be built from the ground up, which also meant that they had no legacy equipment and training issues. They did not have to maintain 20 year old databases that spanned the nation, they did not have to keep spares for an old box that was vitally important and they did not have to de-educate a mindset that was focused romantically upon dying technology. For the Chinese this was their age of enlightenment and computers were lighting the way.
The unfortunate problem was that China was also a totalitarian state and instant access to information that counters the official party line was problematic. Yet Western vendors were keen to sell their products into a new market of 1 billion people before their competitors did. In the battle between principle and cash flow, principles were soluble. So we ended up with companies like Cisco Systems setting up the filters on the edge routers; Yahoo handing over the names of dissidents and other vendors becoming involved in the closing down of China’s ability to see the outside world. Even a search on the Tiananmen Square Massacre will cause a Chinese user’s service to be cut for 15 minutes.
Understanding the problem
There would be little social resistance to machine that could hunt down child porn and remove it from the Internet. There would also be little social resistance to stopping spam and phishing. The people who write a virus would have little sympathy if they were caught by the same machine. Adults who try to solicit children for sex would find few people crying over them getting caught. Yet every day this is precisely what happens on the net. From the protection of an anonymous profile people with criminal intent connect to the unsuspecting. Without these few criminals, the Net would be almost what we imagined it could be. It would be heavenly. Instead we are bunkered behind firewalls and continuously scanning for virus’s hoping that it is full proof. We are living in an age where communication has never been easier but people have never been more afraid of how that contact will be to their detriment.
The device that we use to connect on line has been so intractably entangled into to our psyche that if it is taken away we fret. People become angry, start to grieve and become desperate when their computers are infected with a virus. The stress of doing without online communications is almost at the point of complete and utter dependence.
In a much more serious manner we are products of a post 9-11 mindset where enemies haunt the shadows of the internet and plot our deaths. We no longer need proof of this because the imagination is being fuelled by thousands of conspiracy sites and hysterical blogs. Not only are our lives seen to be at risk but also the minds of our children who are innocent prey to an on line porn king playing havoc with their psychology.
There are no guardians on the net, no rating system and no blockages to prevent what people do not want from coming to their computers and what is more they have little knowledge of what their children are being fed. How do we find the recipe for a euthanasia drug, anorexic porn, depressing images of death and justification for self mutilation? You google it. Fear of losing a loved one to alienation and warped ideals can play heavily upon the minds of parents. Every person knows of someone who has gone the wrong way in life; made the wrong choices and abused everyone with a long rehearsed diatribe from a vogue subculture. It may seem easy to blame the net as an innocent scapegoat but where evidence is inconclusive, fear fills the gaps. Better to be safe than sorry.
Nanny States and PC Thugs
The problem occurs when the libertarian verses the protectorate argument cannot be settled. The Internet is free and open but it is also corrupted and decadent. Values determine the frame of the argument until it becomes part of a culture clash. Concerned parents want the corruption to go away, concerned libertarians want freedom to access material. When a culture war grows it eventually impacts upon politics. Any issue that gives a party a higher moral ground is a winner and nothing is higher than appearing to protect children. The market exists for a magic box that can make everything better.
Filtered Solutions
Technically such a box does not exist. We have major problem with fundamentals of the Internet design that makes such devices impossible. Accessibility and connectivity are opposite to security and protection. You cannot have one without sacrificing something of the other. Any professional who knows even the basics of Network security knows this rule. It is that basic. They also know that the only computer that is protected from the Internet nasties is one that is not connect to the internet, sits alone in a locked and is switched off. In short, if anyone promises 100% on line security, they are selling you snake oil. Every security measure on the internet is a compromise where either security is sacrificed for increased access or access is sacrificed for increase security.
The Governments Pipe Dream
I am yet to see a realistic way of filtering the internet. Unlike China, Australia has pre-existing infrastructure; it has multiple gateways into the nation and it operates principally in English. We do not have vendors selling solutions to universally implement across an entire nation.
For every security leap there is also a leap in breaking the security. The last government effort to give free CDs of internet filtering software collapsed after a few days of hacking by teenagers. The next proposal will require every ISP in the nation to co-operate in a way that is counterproductive to turning a profit. Extra staff will have to be employed to collect the data and filter the data for the government. The filter will require constant monitoring and adjustments as mistakes are made. The internet will operate slower as data is passed through a filter. The increased operational costs to ISPs will be passed directly onto the consumer. All these inconveniences will be added to the Net but produce no actual benefit.
It only takes a day for people to work out how to get around the filters. A new piece of encapsulating software that hides the nature of the content; sites that spoof or disguises IP address exist and pre existing technology like Voip will be reused to move data instead of voice. The professionals will be back in business before the filters are even warm and the rest of the world will push another button to solve a small hiccup. One day even China’s filters will be useless relics of lost power.
Conclusion:
The end result will be a very expensive white elephant that does nothing and protects no one. Hundreds of millions will be spent on a solution that cannot technically be provided because of the internet’s existing design. It would be cheaper to scrap the entire internet and start again with a new technology than to pursue this irrational approach. You cannot filter what you cannot see and you cannot see everything. These political clowns in Canberra do not understand the technology and have no idea what they are talking about.
But that is just my opinion.
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Comment by Norm
Consumption Malfunction
Equal and Opposite
Arses and Elbows
Footy Power
Comment by Damo
For the Sake of Argument
My Apologetics
Thanks for your comments.
From what my email in box tells me. Love is the drug and I need 100 kgs of viagra to score.
The fall of the Roman Empire I was told was partly due to a lack of viagra.
The Goths and the Vandals had more testosterone and therefore won.
Comment by Garrett Mickley
Survive, Today!
Garrett's Absolution
Digital Product Reviews
I noticed there were some U.K. sites you can only view if you're in the U.K. Over here in America, when you try to access the page you get a page that states the above. I don't remember what site it was, just something I found on Google, but fact remains the same.
Why try and keep everyone other than your own country out?
Comment by katyzzz
Photography Tips
Health Focus
MS Paint Art
The difficulties you describe are without question.
Congratulations on a well structured, well reasoned argument and for informing us just a little more, IT is a great mystery to many, as, I feel sure, you already know.
Comment by Cibbuano
20/20 Filmsight
Science News
Hunt Famous
Orble Post of the Day
Fat Cult
Techbreak
Comment by Damo
For the Sake of Argument
My Apologetics
Thanks for your comments.
There may be lots of reason why a site is blocked from exiting one particular country. It could be to do with royalties or it could be to do with a legal issue.
If you find the link send it to me and may be able to work it out.
Comment by Damo
For the Sake of Argument
My Apologetics
Thanks for comments.
If it demystifies it a little then I have done my job.
Cibbuano
Thanks for your comments.
"I wrote an email to the minister suggesting that this was a bad idea..."
That is interesting. What did say in the email?
Did they reply?
Comment by Doug Pollard
Rainbow Reporter
Freshly Doug
I have also pointed out that it's wrong in principle. It's all very well to say, "we want to do this to protect the children", which is a noble aim, but once the system is in place, any future government could use it to 'blacklist' and hence block anything they wanted. Once the machinery is there, you know it will be used.
So far the only answers I have received are a rehash of government press releases. The man is deaf to reason - no surprise as he comes from the Catholic wing of the Labor Party.
If you are interested in avoiding this unwarranted govenrment interference, you could start by checking out www.torproject.org - while we still can.
Comment by Damo
For the Sake of Argument
My Apologetics
Thanks for comments.
As I said in my intro I will leave the question of morality to others to sort out for now.
My purpose was to argue that it was a technical nightmare that will not deliver the outcomes required of it.
Site that bypass filters may help but if the government pays attention to you then there is nothing you can do to stop it. Even today you have no power to stop them finding out where you have been and what you have been looking at.
However I will grab you on this point:
"no surprise as he comes from the Catholic wing of the Labor Party."
Circulus in demonstrando.
Are you running an anti Catholic theme park or something?
Comment by Doug Pollard
Rainbow Reporter
Freshly Doug
Faith, beliefs (or, to give them their proper name, self-delusion and irrationality) are private matters, and no-one should use them as an excuse to impose their views on others. In Australia the greatest sinners in this regard are usually evangelicals and/or Catholics.
Comment by Damo
For the Sake of Argument
My Apologetics
That is a very big theme park you have.
It has an anti Buddhist ride, an anti Islamic ride, an anti .... What they heck?
However you seem to want to frame a technical post around the theme park in your own head.
We are part of the same world and in it fundamentalist secularism is just another very small fish trying to impose its values on others.
Comment by Doug Pollard
Rainbow Reporter
Freshly Doug
Comment by Damo
For the Sake of Argument
My Apologetics
Perception is a funny thing.
I get the perception that when I write a technical post that it should be dominated with technical and factual answers.
If I wanted to discuss morality, religion, reality and fact I may actually write a post on those subjects. That way I am able to points subjects to the most appropriate forum.
Comment by Doug Pollard
Rainbow Reporter
Freshly Doug
You concluded that this would be an extremely expensive white elephant and suggested the reason was that members of parliament don't understand the technical issues.
And you want factual answers. Well, consider the following facts.
Conroy and co know the technical problems very well: this is a political, noit a technical issue. It is driven by three things.
The cloak of ersatz Christianity in which Labor cynically wrapped itself at the last election (stealing it from John Howard, who cosied up to all kinds of religious whack-jobs in suburban mega-churches, Exclusive Brethren etc. in a tactical vote-grab). Labor just outbid the Coalition this time..
The placating of their own Catholic wing, which has been pressing for something like this at the behest of the Vatican stooges in the party and unions. There's also been a fair amount of priestly blackmail, with dark mutterings in the press about pollies who don't toe the church line on a number of matters (abortion, stem cell research in particular) being subject to religious sanctions. This is a crumb thrown in their direction by Labor to take some of the pressure off.
Most important of all, keeping far right fundie Sen Steve Fielding onside, because they need his vote in the Senate. He has been particularly adamant that something like this must go through.
So no matter how technically stupid and impossible it may be, millions of dollars will be wasted in order to satisfy these irrational minority constituencies.
These are facts, too, which are essential to make sense of what's going on.
Comment by Damo
For the Sake of Argument
My Apologetics
It is early morning and I will be out all day. So you have to forgive me if I do not reply to your next comment instantly.
Obviously this issue has hit a raw and irrational nerve in you.
I like Catholics, Buddhists, Muslims etc.
I get the impression you have been reading some deep dark conspiracy books where three hooked nosed jews control the world from a secret room at the bottom of the Vatican.
Though I find such conspiracy theories endlessly entertaining they are distracting from the subject matter of this post. I do have several posts that discuss conspiracy theories and superstitions where your views are welcome.
I am also the only blog site on Orble that has a complaints department where you can complain if you feel that you have been misrepresented.
Comment by Doug Pollard
Rainbow Reporter
Freshly Doug
Check out Really Long Link - for example I take one quote:
"Much of the opposition to Senator Conroy's plan revolves around the fact that, unlike his earlier promises, he now wants to make the filtering mandatory for all Australians - spurred on by support from vocal minorities such as the Australian Family Association and the Australian Christian Lobby.
Senator Nick Xenophon and Family First Senator Steve Fielding, both of whom the Government needs to pass legislation, have already said they want the mandatory filters broadened to include the blocking of hard-core pornography and online gambling sites.
Grilled by a Senate Estimates committee in October, Senator Conroy said Britain, Sweden, Canada and New Zealand had all implemented similar filtering systems. However, in all cases, participation by ISPs was optional and the filtering was limited in scope to predominantly child pornography."
Comment by Damo
For the Sake of Argument
My Apologetics
Funny place Purlania it is full of wanking journalists who keep trying to sell freaky conspiracy theories.
Comment by Mister Smith
MRS SMITH
READ THIS
SISTERS IN CRIME
i just read this post and I thought you might be able to answer a question. People who have almost zero understanding (like myself) of how the internet works keep insisting to me that any sort of online financial transaction could result in my details being accessed for identity/money theft. I ask how? Do they actually know any person this has hapened to? The best they can give is a vague friend of a friend thing. My question is - Do you know if it is possible for banking details incl passwords to be stolen if the person doing the online transaction does not stupidly fall for a (phony)request to provide it. Thanks
Comment by Damo
For the Sake of Argument
My Apologetics
Thanks for your comments.
In answer to you concerns about online transactions the answer yes. It is possible with the correct equipment and software to get any information on any transaction. However the likely hood of getting away with it is low.
Banks will replace money that they lost, you can bill back to the supplier any goods ordered online that has not been delivered and you can opt out of online transactions.
I have personally dealt with numerous cases of online misbehavior including a cyberstalking case that I found very disturbing.
So as a result i do advise that if people do not trust the medium of transfer do not use it.